Dublin might be on the way to having three of the finest sports stadia in Europe, but it's not a prospect that has brought unconfined joy to sports fans everywhere.
While the Government, the FAI and the GAA press ahead with multi-million pound stadium developments, a progressive soccer club on the Waterford-Kilkenny border says it has failed to get State funding for basic facilities.
The plight of the Ferrybank club typifies the chasm between those who operate in the heady world of all-seater stadia and corporate sponsorship, and volunteers who struggle week after week to stay in existence.
Ferrybank has nine schoolboy, two youth and two junior teams. It also provides coaching for children between six and nine who are too young to play in full-scale matches.
In recent years the club has developed two pitches and a gravel-based all-weather training area, on land donated by Waterford Corporation, at a total cost of £300,000. Of that, £10,000 came from National Lottery funds, £5,000 from the FAI and the rest was raised mainly by voluntary effort.
Despite the progress to date, players still tog out in old freight containers serving as dressing rooms. The club wants to rectify this and is awaiting planning permission for a clubhouse which, with ancillary facilities, will cost at least £200,000. An application for funding under the Government's sports capital programme was turned down last year.
On a visit to Waterford on Monday, the Minister for Tourism and Sport, Dr Jim McDaid, pointed out that the club did not meet all of the requirements for funding, such as having planning permission in place.
Club officers acknowledge this, but say the entire application procedure is so daunting that this year they've hired a consultant to oversee the paperwork. Ferrybank's public relations officer, Mr Donie Fell, says he is not merely highlighting the club's situation but "the entire lack of vision that exists in this country when it comes to the development of sport".
His club has particular problems of its own, placed as it is on the Waterford-Kilkenny border. The club treasurer, Mr Aidan Troy, recalls what happened when officers set about installing showers in the container dressing rooms.
"We paid a fee to Waterford Corporation to get the water in. But they came back after a while and said `we can't put the water in, the pitches are in Kilkenny'. The fee was refunded, but then Kilkenny County Council came along and said `no, the stopcock on the road is in Waterford.' Then two architects from Kilkenny and Waterford came together and said there was no stopcock . . . Eventually Kilkenny came back and said to Waterford, `you can put in the water."'
Mr Fell claims some local politicians are "blinded by the black-and-amber versus blue-and-white arguments", and as a result a once-off opportunity to create sports facilities for the entire community is being lost.
It is already agreed, he explained, that the new Abbey Community College - established in September after a merger of two schools - will use adjacent pitches belonging to Ferrybank's soccer and GAA clubs. He believes such co-operation could run much deeper.
"There is an opportunity here for the community, the schools, the VEC, Waterford Corporation, Kilkenny County Council and the Department of Tourism and Sport to come together in partnership and provide top class facilities for the young people of Ferrybank and south Kilkenny."
Whether this vision will ever become reality, it is the type of partnership approach Dr McDaid wants to see. In 1998 a total of 400 sports projects were selected for funding by his Department. But of the £15 million allocated, £8 million has been withheld because more than half the projects approved have not yet got off the ground. The Minister said this was evidence that stringent criteria need to be applied to protect taxpayers' money.
"There is a points system now in place which gives us a basis on which to assess applications. Previously they were just sent in ad hoc. I don't want to make it any more complicated but at least they must meet minimum requirements before they can proceed."
He also disputed the suggestion that the application procedure was unnecessarily bureaucratic. Mr Fell said his club's facilities were not inspected by any Department official; an application form was filled out and a rejection came in the post, with brief, handwritten explanations of how the club had fared under the criteria.
Applications are awarded marks out of five in categories such as financial viability, level of socio-economic disadvantage and of local funding available. "It's all done by correspondence," said the club's chairman, Mr Michael Lynch. "You don't meet anybody face to face.
"Even if they had people from the Department to go around to the clubs and explain to them how the forms should be filled in and what's required, it would make a difference," he said.
"There's no problem about getting an oral hearing," Dr McDaid replied. "All they have to do is ring the sports section and anybody from my Department will speak to them. This year I've asked the Department to send officials right around the country to explain to people exactly what is required."
A spokeswoman for the Minister later confirmed, however, that Waterford was not one of the counties visited.